International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction

Vol 3, No 3, September 2014, 168-181

Process Improvement for Power Plant Turnaround

Planning and Management
Mohammad Raoufi and Aminah Robinson Fayek∗

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta,

3-133 Markin/CNRL Natural Resources Engineering Facility, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2W2, Canada

Abstract: Turnarounds are unique maintenance projects with a high probability of scope change, time delay,
and cost overrun. Negative effects stemming from such uncertainties can be mitigated by following best practices
for turnaround planning and management. There has been no comprehensive review of best practices for
turnaround planning and management in past research. Our review presents guidelines and recommendations
based on existing best practices to support managers and engineers involved in turnarounds. Because they are
based on proven best practices, implementation of the recommendations should improve power plant turnaround
planning and management processes, leading to better project performance. Our paper compares planning and
management practices followed in a real turnaround project case to the best practices in order to find gaps and
commonalities; the systematic methodology we propose can be implemented by other companies involved in
turnaround projects in order to improve their planning and management processes.
Keywords: Best practices, turnaround projects, planning, management, process improvement
DOI: 10.7492/IJAEC.2014.014

1 INTRODUCTION ers currently available: “the skilled workforce attrition

that the industry faces today magnifies the risks, in-
Turnarounds, also known as shutdowns or outages, are creases the need for best practices, and calls for a new
unique and complex maintenance projects that are per- paradigm: process- and unit-specific knowledge trans-
formed within short durations and with high intensi- fer” (Cormier and Gillard 2009).
ty in scheduled activities. Unfortunately, turnaround Following best practices of turnaround planning and
projects are very likely to suffer significant impacts on management will contribute to positive impact on cost
both incurred cost and execution time. Incurred cost of turnaround projects. Turnaround project cost in-
may be impacted by problems such as loss of produc- cludes both the temporary loss of production and
tion during turnaround execution and scope change the cost of the turnaround itself, so any delay in
due to the discovery of unanticipated mechanical is- turnaround execution will result in higher costs. How-
sues upon cleaning and inspection of machine parts ever, two characteristics of turnaround projects are
that are not visible during operation. Any changes in particularly likely to result in project delay and conse-
scope also impact execution time. Oliver (2002), in quently higher project cost. One characteristic is the
a paper that revealed how turnaround project success unknown scope of work. As mentioned by Elshout and
depends on complete planning mentioned that “organi- Garcia (2009), despite considerable improvement in the
zations that complete turnarounds on time, on budget, techniques for predicting corrosion rates there remains
and without surprises invariably have a defined work an element of surprise when equipment is opened and
process and adhere to it”. Thus, it is important to cleaned for inspection. In other words, the inspection
have an established process for turnaround planning of machinery and equipment parts which are not visi-
and management; this process can be optimized by ble during normal operations may lead to unexpected
following proven best practices. Other authors have changes to the work scope. The other characteristic
pointed out the escalating need for best practices as is limited execution time. In order to minimize loss
a result of the dwindling numbers of the skilled work- of production, turnarounds tend to have a very com-

*Corresponding author, Email: aminah.robinson@ualberta.ca

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 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181
pact schedule of activities during turnaround execu-
tion such that the impact of any delay is magnified
as the schedule may have higher critical activities. In
order to prevent project delays and thus decrease
project cost, it is in the best interest of organizations
undertaking turnarounds to follow best practices of
turnaround planning and management.
Power plant turnarounds have been identified as the
most expensive and time-consuming of maintenance
projects (McLay 2012). Trends in electrical energy
production and demand indicate that the importance
of following best practices in turnaround planning and
management is likely to increase in future. A National
Energy Board of Canada (NEB) report (National En-
ergy Board of Canada 2013) showed that in 2012 elec-
tricity generation capacity in Canada reached 134GW
and is projected to reach 164 GW by 2035. The NEB
report further indicated that an average 1% increase in
total electricity generation capacity in Canada is need-
ed to meet growing demand, replace aging facilities,
and to fulfill economic and environmental needs (Na-
tional Energy Board of Canada 2013). In fact, rapid
growth in global energy demand requires power plants
worldwide to consistently run at near capacity. To
keep up with these increasing demands for electrical
energy, execution of turnaround projects will be sub-
ject to even tighter time constraints in future, making
it all the more imperative that organizations imple-
ment whatever improvements they can and follow best
practices for turnaround planning and management
that have been shown to improve turnaround project
performance. However, despite the considerable risk
and growing constraints associated with turnaround
projects, to date, there has been no comprehensive
review of best practices for turnaround planning and
management to which industry practitioners may refer.
This paper presents a comprehensive review of past
research regarding the best practices to plan, manage,
and execute power plant turnaround projects. Each
best practice we recommend has been shown to im-
prove performance in the previous research studies.
Because delays and expanding work scopes are ma-
jor contributors to turnaround project cost overruns,
implementation of these performance-improving best
practices will help lower turnaround costs. To help
industry practitioners discern the extent to which the
recommended best practices need or do not need to be
implemented in their organizations, we further present
a methodology for analysis of existing power plant
turnaround planning and management processes. Us-
ing a case study, we illustrate the methodology by
evaluating the level of implementation of best practices
for turnaround planning and management necessary in
a company based in Alberta, Canada. The compa-
ny has several power plants in North America, and
has a well-documented project management process
used for turnarounds. In the case study, we compare
the company’s documented project management pro-
169
cess to industry best practices for turnaround planning
and management we obtained through our comprehen-
sive literature review in order to identify any gaps in
the company’s existing practices. By identifying these
gaps, we are able to highlight areas in which the com-
pany’s practices should be revised in future. Our paper
also provides recommendations for the improvement of
some company practices for future turnarounds.
The contribution of this paper is in providing a com-
prehensive review of best practices for power plant
turnaround planning and management and a systemat-
ic method of comparing a company’s own documented
practices against previously researched industry best
practices so as to improve the planning and execu-
tion of future turnaround projects. The methodolo-
gy can be implemented by other companies involved
in turnaround projects in order to improve their own
documented planning and management processes. Fur-
thermore, future research can be done to compare a
company’s documented practices to its actual practices
on turnaround projects to identify gaps between the
theoretical and applied; in this way, researchers can
evaluate the consistency of the application of a compa-
ny’s documented practices across turnaround projects.
2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In construction, many industry standard best practices
have been developed and are widely applied. These in-
clude best practices for project risk assessment, quality
management, and front-end planning developed by the
Construction Industry Institute (2014) (CII) and best
practices for advanced work packaging and workface
planning developed by the Construction Owners Asso-
ciation of Alberta (2014). However, there is a lack of
industry standard best practices developed specifically
for turnaround planning and management even though
applicable best practices exist in published research lit-
erature. Industry practitioners were interested in im-
plementing best practices to better their organization’s
performance of turnaround projects would benefit from
a comprehensive review summarizing available litera-
ture on best practices relevant to turnaround planning
and management; This paper provides such a review.
This paper includes two parts. In the first part,
we perform a comprehensive review of best practices
for turnaround planning and management. The litera-
ture review provides a collection of best practices from
which all companies involved in turnaround projects
can draw. While managers and engineers involved
in turnaround planning and management will benefit
from the recommendations provided by the literature
review, it is also important to have a method capable
of finding gaps in existing company practices for the
purpose of process improvement. In the second part
of this paper, we therefore provide a generic, system-
atic methodology that will enable any company that
 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181
engages in turnaround projects to compare its
existing, documented, company-specific practices with
the published industry best practices we have re-
viewed. We demonstrate application of the sys-
tematic methodology using a case study. The
challenge here is that best practices describe both
general and detailed concepts for the planning and
management of turnaround projects that have been
compiled from various sources of published litera-
ture, whereas a company’s own internal practices
describe specific concepts particularly suited to com-
pany projects. Fayek and Peng (2013) faced a
similar challenge when adapting industry standard pro-
cedures related to workface planning to organization-
specific procedures. Their study focused on three
different categories of procedures and practices: indus-
try standard procedures and practices, organization-
specific procedures and practices, and actual project
practices (Fayek and Peng 2013). In order to overcome
the difficulty of comparing two sets of documents which
were written from two different perspectives, this pa-
per proposes a methodology consisting of three steps:
phase-to-phase comparison, comparison of each phase
output, and missing best practices concepts. The steps
of the proposed systematic methodology for comparing
a company’s own best practices against published best
practices are illustrated in Figure 1.
Following this schematic, the first step is phase-to-
phase comparison. This step compares consideration
and timing of phases between the two sets of practices
(internal/company-specific and industry/published).
Without going into the detail of each phase’s activity
and outputs, the first step only provides an overview
of how the case company’s practices are similar to or
different from industry best practices. After complet-
ing this step, a company following our comparison
methodology will have a general idea of which recom-
mended phases were not included in their own compa-
ny’s practices as well as which company practices phas-
Figure 1. A systematic method for comparing company practices to published best practices
170
es are redundant based on the industry best practices.
The timing of phases is compared so that a company
may observe if it has planned some phases in a relaxed
schedule with high buffers or if it has forced its phases
into a compact and critical schedule.
The second step compares the output of each com-
pany phase to the related phases recommended by in-
dustry best practices. In our case study, both the case
company practices and the best practices recommend-
ed by the literature we reviewed include details about
tasks, task timings, and outputs of each phase. How-
ever, the industry best practices tend to focus more on
the outputs. Therefore, in this step, for each phase all
the required outputs are compared between the compa-
ny’s own practices and the best practices. In addition
to the outputs of each phase, task timings are also com-
pared. Upon completing this step, the gaps between a
company’s practices and the published industry best
practices will be evident, giving companies following
our methodology a starting point for improving their
internal practices. We also demonstrate how to cal-
culate the percent extent to which company practices
diverge from best practices.
The third step deals with any best practices concepts
that are altogether missing from the company’s exist-
ing documented practices. As a result of the previous
two steps, by this point all the company’s document-
ed practices have been compared to the best practices
recommended by our literature review; however, there
is always the possibility that one or more best prac-
tice(s) are entirely excluded from the company prac-
tices. Therefore, the third step re-examines the best
practices we compiled and identifies those concepts and
recommendations not covered by the company prac-
tices.
The proposed systematic methodology for compar-
ison, in addition to the performed comprehensive re-
view, will help all companies involved in turnaround
projects identify areas of weakness in their planning
 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181
and management processes so that they can then ad-
dress these issues to improve their practices.
3 BEST PRACTICES FOR POWER
PLANT TURNAROUND PLANNING
AND MANAGEMENT
This section outlines and presents a comprehensive
documentation of past research that has been con-
ducted regarding the best practices to plan, man-
age, and execute turnaround projects. It includes our
recommendations based upon the conducted studies.
Because they are based on proven best practices, im-
plementation of the recommendations should improve
power plant turnaround planning and management
processes, leading to better project performance.
3.1 Planning of Turnaround Projects
To keep up with the shifting demands of the business
environment, every work process must be fully inte-
grated with a company’s overall business plan. Work
processes should also reflect the stage reached in the
planning process, as needs change accordingly. Many
turnaround practitioners believe that those work plan-
ning processes that begin immediately after completion
of the last turnaround require considerably more effort
and planning manpower than those that do not com-
mence until nearer the actual turnaround dates (Oliver
2002), but this is not necessarily the case. If we assume
that a given number of activities need to be accom-
plished through the planning process, in many cases it
is actually more efficient to carry them out over a longer
period of time than to expedite their completion closer
to turnaround commencement. Nevertheless, a large
portion of the scope of work remains unknown until
right up to the beginning of turnaround management
(Ertl 2004; Levitt 2004; Lenahan 1999; Oliver 2001;
Oliver 2002) when the equipment is disassembled and
examined.
A business that has developed a formal plant
turnaround management process and procedure sup-
ported by plant turnaround management philosophy
and long-term strategy will achieve a higher level of
budget and schedule accuracy (McLay 2012). The
plant turnaround philosophy should reflect the ob-
jectives of the corporate business plan. Developed
according to these objectives, the plant turnaround
management process includes the creation of a long-
term strategic plan and the appointment a turnaround
manager who will initiate the turnaround procedure.
Stages for turnaround projects
Oliver (2002) describes the different stages of the
turnaround projects including required data, deliver-
ables, and timing of each stage. Based on Oliver’s de-
scription, turnaround stages include the business plan,
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conceptual development, work development, detailed
planning, pre-turnaround work, turnaround execution,
and post-turnaround stages.
Scope management and planning methodology
There are basically three categories of work scope
in turnaround projects (Obiajunwa 2010), including
known scope, anticipated scope, and emergent scope.
Known scope includes work items that are well defined.
Anticipated scope includes work items that are loose-
ly defined, but based on estimates from inspections
and other condition-based analytical results. Emergent
scope includes work that emerges as the equipment is
dismantled.
For both the known and anticipated scopes, Obiajun-
wa recommends a methodology for scope management
in turnaround projects outlined by the Guide to the
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK
Guide) (Obiajunwa 2007; Obiajunwa 2010; Project
Management Institute 2010). The recommended
methodology includes four steps of scope identifica-
tion: scope verification and validation, scope develop-
ment, and scope planning. Firstly, scope identification
should be performed by extensively studying past shut-
down final reports, the computer maintenance manage-
ment system database, operations and maintenance
manuals, and documents relating to health, safety, and
environment. Secondly, practitioners should complete
scope verification and validation by completing inspec-
tions, determining which jobs should be completed
during the turnaround, and then assessing these jobs
to ensure that they can only be done during a plant
shutdown. During pre-shutdown meetings for the vali-
dation and verification of the scope of work, each scope
item should be verified and approved by the depart-
mental heads. Thirdly, the scope development step
should identify the details of the work scope which in-
volves determining the exact tasks (job steps) for each
work item. Practitioners should identify a work list for
each job, determine the materials and spares needed,
ascertain which equipment and tools are needed, and
establish risk logs for major equipment components
to track and monitor their condition. Finally, scope
planning should be done as the final step in scope
identification to properly define the known scope tasks
or activities according to their duration, cost, and re-
source requirements. Anticipated scope should also be
accounted for according to any technical or statistical
information about the equipment obtained from avail-
able sources such as equipment maintenance history,
evaluation reports on component condition of
equipment from previous turnaround projects, non-
destructive tests (NDTs), on-run inspections, and any
other testing results.
In addition to known scope and anticipated scope,
emergent scope should also be defined. Emergent
scope is usually related work items that are not known
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prior to project execution and hence cannot be planned turnaround if the right people occupy leadership posi-
for in advance. Major sources of emergent scope in- tions, but in other situations, an established knowledge
clude unanticipated scope, scope that is anticipat- transfer process crucially helps overcome disparate in-
ed but under-estimated, and scope that is generated dividual points of view (Cormier and Gillard 2009).
while carrying out the tasks. Turnaround management Reducing risks during the scoping phase of a pow-
should plan to handle any emergent job items. Recom- er plant turnaround will improve the cost effectiveness
mendations for managing the emergent scope include of the installation (maintenance work). This risk re-
identifying an early scope freezing date, establishing an duction process combines improvements in the cate-
additional work procedure, and developing a manage- gories of organization, process, technique, and technol-
ment process for scope changes. ogy (Lazeroms 2011). These improvements will help
reduce the level of risk related to installation during the
Risk Mitigation in Turnarounds scoping phase of a turnaround. Lazeroms (2011) stated
that a significant portion of the total lifecycle costs of
Risk mitigation is a crucial consideration for a power plant are accrued during the operational phase
turnaround projects. Accordingly, practitioners should of an asset. Within the operational phase of a power
plan to minimize the amount of required work. The de- plant, the majority of costs occur during a turnaround,
sign review process and constructability reviews should and the actual cost of performed turnarounds usually
both consider the risks posed by construction activities exceeds the budget. Lazeroms (2011) provides insight
during the turnaround. The potential risks of com- into installation risks, the effects they have on opera-
pleting excessive work during the turnaround increase tional decision-making during turnaround scoping, and
project complexity and may result in increased costs, methods and techniques for reducing these risks so as
schedule delays, or in the worst case scenario, failure of to improve cost effectiveness.
the project to complete objectives. Planning and coor-
dinating efforts during the pre-construction phases of
3.2 Turnaround Management Teams
the turnaround can help mitigate potential problems
(Whittington and Gibson 2009). The CII presented It has been recognized that there is a need for mul-
some critical management issues that were identified tifunctional or interdisciplinary teams to handle the
as requiring additional care during turnaround plan- diverse activities of the turnaround planning process,
ning (Construction Industry Institute 2008). and to ensure that the disparate requirements of all
Cormier and Gillard (2009) stated that the imple- those who contribute to the turnaround are reflected
mentation of a rigorous, structured knowledge trans- in the final plan (Oliver 2002). Oliver (2002) recom-
fer system can improve the success of any turnaround. mends the following teams to manage the turnaround
Additionally, conveying appropriate process- and unit- projects: the core team, steering committee team, and
specific information, specifications, and procedures to reviews or audits team. Firstly, a core team should
the multitude of parties involved in a turnaround can be established to handle the planning process. Assem-
also reduce risk. Accordingly, Cormier and Gillard rec- bling this team is often considered as an end in itself,
ommend communicating all of the specific tasks, sched- but really this is just the first step. Potential members
ules, priorities, contingencies, and perceived risks that should be assessed for their ability to work as part of a
should or might occur to each group of workers. The team and, where needed, appropriate training should
documentation, structure, and delivery of this infor- be given. Not everyone is suited to being a team mem-
mation should be tailored to the destination audience ber in this context; this should not imply that such in-
while considering that any given group of workers may dividuals are ineffective workers, but rather that their
range widely in terms of craft, experience, and level individual talents are best utilized outside a team en-
of responsibility. To ensure these needs are met, the vironment (Duffuaa and Ben-Daya 2004; Duffuaa and
communication process should be verified. Implement- Ben-Daya 2009). Secondly, the turnaround steering
ing a rigorous, structured knowledge transfer system committee team should be established to provide di-
ensures that everyone involved in the turnaround fol- rection and guidance to the core team and ensure that
lows a common set of best practices that can be refined the turnaround meets the needs of the business. More
over the years rather than relying on the combination of importantly, the steering committee ensures that the
backgrounds, expertise, and biases of key players, who scope aligns with the budget for the turnaround. The
differ from one turnaround to the next. For instance, steering committee must regularly communicate with
planning styles vary depending on the planner, and for- the core team to ensure the latter is kept informed of
mal communication of the plan to all parties involved the work scope and current estimated costs of execu-
tends to relax as the event draws closer, leaving room tion. Thirdly, in order to ensure that the planning
for diverse interpretations. Furthermore, training for and execution process is receiving appropriate atten-
turnaround projects tends to be general in nature, ca- tion and that progress is steady, a series of reviews or
sual in format, and dependent on the experience of the audits should be carried out at intervals throughout the
trainer. In other words, it is possible to have a good process. The individuals conducting the audits should

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be appointed by the steering committee and should be “probability of meeting the project duration” (Megow
knowledgeable in turnaround matters but should not et al. 2011).
have direct responsibilities in respect to the turnaround Determining a suitable project duration depends on
under review. It is desirable to include someone from several aspects that need to be balanced against each
outside the plant or organization for some, if not all, other. These include the total resource cost for hiring
of the audits (Oliver 2002). resource units, the total production loss caused by the
Other authors recommended creating an organiza- shutdown during the turnaround period, and a “risk
tional unit within the plant operations division called cost” due to unexpected repairs and delays that are in-
the Plant Turnaround Services (PTS) department that herent in maintenance jobs and tend to become more
is solely dedicated to managing the planning, prepa- influential the shorter and more ambitious the project
ration, and execution of the plant turnaround main- duration becomes. Elshout and Garcia (2009) stated
tenance. With this organizational arrangement, all that shutdown plans have to be well organized so that
turnaround activities within the corporation are cen- all the work dovetails within the allotted shutdown pe-
tralized and administered by PTS (Ghazali and Halib riod. They suggest that when developing the schedule,
2011). PTS is one of the functional departments in the to maintain flexibility, the activities should be broken
plant operations division and is responsible for: (1) down into a large number of steps, each of which has an
strategizing and developing turnaround maintenance early start date and last-possible completion date. The
operation plans for the company’s plant turnaround objective is to pre-install and complete as much of the
maintenance activities; (2) managing and leading the construction as possible in advance of the shutdown.
preparation and implementation of the turnaround; (3) Because shutdown time is very limited, only tasks that
managing the material and service requirements of the absolutely must be done during the unit shutdown are
turnaround; and (4) developing, implementing, and re- undertaken at this time. This approach also allows for
viewing the turnaround’s health, safety, and environ- fewer people onsite during the critical period of shut-
mental protection (HSE) and quality control/assurance down activities. Elshout and Garcia (2009) suggest
(QC/QA) plans and performance. Furthermore, Ghaz- that before developing a high level of schedule detail,
ali and Halib (2011) suggest an organizational struc- practitioners may use a simpler bar chart-type schedule
ture for a turnaround project’s execution team. The to chart the timings for ordering long-lead-time equip-
organizational structure consists of two main elements, ment such as thick-walled reactors, alloy equipment,
namely, the resource structure at the bottom and the and high-pressure vessels. Working back from the de-
administrative structure at the top. sired start of work in the field, the project manager
can determine the latest time at which an order can be
3.3 Turnaround Scheduling placed. Ordering requires some lead time during which
necessary pre-purchasing activities can be completed.
Having a good strategy for turnaround scheduling will Sometimes, equipment purchases must be made before
help practitioners develop a feasible schedule. A fea- the final design is completed.
sible schedule appropriately allocates resource units to
jobs and provides temporally feasible job plans that re-
3.4 Turnaround Management
spect given precedence constraints and working shifts.
It is in an organization’s best interest to minimize both There are some general practices in managing
the project’s duration and its cost; however, there is a turnaround which should be followed to better over-
trade-off: fast project executions increase costs, where- come turnaround challenges. Duffy and Tregoe (2012)
as less expensive project executions take a long time. define the top challenges and critical areas in man-
A balance needs to be struck. aging turnaround projects. Ensuring workforce safety
Megow et al. (2011) developed and presented a two- of both employees and contractors is the number one
phase approach for scheduling turnarounds. The first priority for the turnaround management team. Oth-
phase supports the project manager in finding a suit- er challenges and critical areas include the develop-
able project duration that respects his or her risk pref- ment, deployment, and communication of an effective
erences, and the second phase optimizes the use of turnaround process; managing project scope creep dur-
resources for the chosen duration. In the first phase, ing the turnaround execution; the capture, analysis,
the strategic planning phase, the project manager must and availability of relevant information and metrics;
determine the turnaround project’s start and finish the existence of business processes which do not sup-
dates (i.e., the makespan) as well as quantify the avail- port the needs of the turnaround; cost management
able workers and resources. In the second phase, the and control in executing complex turnarounds; the
detailed planning phase, practitioners allocate and lev- coordination and management of complex resources;
el resources for the heuristically determined deadline the transformation of an organization from reactive to
by completing a risk analysis of the computed, de- proactive; and managing the expectations of diverse
tailed schedule. This risk analysis should provide upper stakeholders. In order to overcome turnaround man-
bounds for the risk measures “expected tardiness” and aging challenges the following areas should be consid-

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ered during the planning, management, and execution
of turnaround projects: development, deployment, and
communication of an effective turnaround process; cap-
ture, analysis, and availability of relevant information
and metrics; overcoming business processes which do
not support the needs of the turnaround; coordination
and management of complex resources; overcoming a
reactive culture by moving toward anticipating and re-
solving issues before they impact; and managing the
expectations of diverse stakeholders (Duffy and Tregoe
2012).
Synchronizing turnaround project execution can im-
prove turnaround performance impressively. (Gup-
ta 2011) suggested the use of critical chain project
management (CCPM) to coordinate priorities during
turnaround execution because it enables managers to
synchronize work items despite uncertainties related
to engineering, planning, and execution. To synchro-
nize project execution, CCPM prescribes three rules:
pipelining, buffering, and buffer management. The
first rule is pipelining, which limits the number of work
streams in execution so as to avoid spreading resources
too thinly and causing bottlenecks, local prioritization,
and unsynchronized work. The second rule is buffer-
ing, which discards local schedules and measurements
and uses an aggregate buffer to protect projects from
uncertainties. This approach favours the final project
deadline over task deadlines. The third rule is buffer
management. Following this rule, practitioners focus
efforts on task prioritization instead of creating de-
tailed and rigid plans, as such exactitude may result
in conflicting priorities. By closely monitoring the rate
of project buffer consumption, practitioners can quick-
ly spot which tasks are consuming buffer most quickly
and can then adjust resources to support tasks most
likely to cause the biggest delays in project comple-
tion (Gupta 2011). The results of this methodology
are impressive. Gupta (2011) cites several examples,
including a Spanish nuclear power plant that by using
buffer management succeeded in increasing its due date
performance by 35% (to 95%) and its throughput by
30%, and another European nuclear plant that dramat-
ically increased its due date performance to 90% and
its throughput by 25% for pre-shutdown engineering
activities.
Scope change management (SCM) should also be
conducted for turnarounds. Al-Qadda (2009) has
conducted research regarding scope change in petro-
chemical plant turnarounds. He recommended that
SCM should follow a change procedure that consists of
activities such as change request initiation, change re-
quest review, evaluation of change request, and change
request approval. The addition, modification, or dele-
tion of scope can all prompt the initiation of a change
request. Further to following the change procedure for
turnaround there are two other important issues that
should be considered as part of SCM. Firstly, practi-
tioners should take care to minimize the changes in
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the turnaround scope of work. Al-Qadda (2009) has
presented the following recommendation for how to do
so:
i The original scope must be clearly and properly
defined;
ii Plant equipment failures and defects that arise be-
tween the scope sign off and the execution time
must be recorded immediately for immediate and
necessary action;
iii Historical information, including that related to
each completed turnaround, must be documented
so that it can be referenced in future;
iv A suitable strategy for accepting scope changes
must be adopted so that the number of scope
changes can be minimized;
v Action must be taken to appropriately address
turnaround scope objectives with the intent of
reducing scope changes on future turnaround
projects; and
vi A proper database system to store historical data
should be constructed as it will be useful in reduc-
ing the scope changes.
Secondly, practitioners should minimize the impact
of changes on safety, duration, cost, and quality. Al-
Qadda (2009) also presented the following recommen-
dations minimizing the impact of changes on safety,
duration, cost, and quality:
i Scope changes that arise at later stages must be
attended to immediately or, if possible, deferred
to the next turnaround so that present turnaround
duration is not affected;
ii Practitioners should devote enough time to devel-
oping turnaround scope so as to minimize the pos-
sibility of scope changes at later stages;
iii If a change can be accommodated immediately,
it must be completed and not deferred so that
turnaround quality is not affected; and
iv All alternative methods of performing scope
changes must be investigated, and in each situa-
tion the alternative with the lowest cost must be
applied.
One potential strategy for reducing the time it takes
to process scope change requests is to create pre-
defined formats that can be quickly and easily ap-
proved. To reduce the impact of work scope changes
on the turnaround process, a suitable combination of
these SCM principles and a company’s existing change
management principles should be adopted.
4 CASE STUDY ANALYSIS OF AN
ACTUAL POWER PLANT
TURNAROUND PLANNING AND
MANAGEMENT PROCESS
We conducted a case study in order to help provide
recommendations for improving a certain company’s
 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181
project management processes for turnaround projects.
The company in question is active in the energy sec-
tor with several coal and gas power plants in Alberta,
Canada. The case study compares and contrasts the
best practices for power plant turnaround planning and
management derived from the literature review in Sec-
tion 3 of this paper (referred to from hereon in as “best
practices” or “BP”) to the company’s existing, docu-
mented standards for managing its turnaround projects
(referred to from hereon in as “company practices” or
“CP”). The presented case study follows the steps de-
scribed in the methodology in order to better illustrate
how the proposed methodology can be applied by com-
panies involved in turnaround projects. The main ob-
jective in conducting this comparison is to point out
the similarities and differences between the two sets of
practices so as to identify any gaps in the company’s
existing standards.
It is important to consider that BP describes both
general and detailed concepts for the planning and
management of turnaround projects that have been
compiled from various sources of published literature,
while CP describes practices intended for a specific
company project management team. Therefore, CP
tend not to highlight more general concepts; instead,
they focus on the outputs of each phase, templates
used, and the responsible persons. In order to com-
pare CP with BP, we follow the methodology shown in
Figure 1. Accordingly, in the first step, we introduce
and compare the different phases suggested by BP and
CP. Next, we compare the activities and outputs of
each CP phase with related aspects of BP. In the third
step, we identify the BP recommendations excluded by
CP.
4.1 Phase-to-Phase Comparison
Our proposed methodology stipulates that the system-
atic comparison should begin by comparing the CP
turnaround phases to those recommended by BP. The
BP divide turnaround planning and management in-
to phases that are part of five-year plans. In CP,
turnaround phases are described in detail for a peri-
od beginning about two years prior to breaker open
(the Project Execution sub-phase start time) and end-
ing about four months after breaker closed (the end
of the Project Execution sub-phase). The beginning
and end of the turnaround management phases de-
scribed by CP and BP are different in some cases.
Furthermore, the BP describe some phases for which
there are no matches in CP and vice versa. Figure
2 illustrates the comparison of turnaround phases de-
fined by BP to the phases defined in CP. As shown
in Figure 2, this phase of the comparison shows two
major gaps between BP and CP. One gap relates to
the definition of phases. According to CP, the project
management team should commence work by about
two years before a turnaround project and should fin-
175
ish turnaround-related work four months after breaker
closed. However, the BP consider turnaround plan-
ning and management in a more general sense, calling
for five-year plans for each turnaround. Such a five-
year plan may include ongoing business processes and
turnaround-specific processes. The other gap relates to
the timing of phases. In CP, each phase is scheduled to
start only after the previous phase has been completed,
and there are no gaps in time between phases. In BP,
however, in some cases a time interval between phases
exists. Accordingly, it can be inferred that these time
intervals can include work related to ongoing processes
and can also accommodate possible delays.
Other companies involved in turnaround projects can
apply the first step of our proposed methodology to
their own context. Although the CP will differ from
one company to another, this step is generic and will
give any company a better perspective of how their
practices are similar or different to BP.
4.2 Comparison of Outputs and Task Tim-
ings of Each Phase
According to our proposed methodology, in the second
step, practitioners should compare outputs of each CP
phase with related aspects of BP in order to find gaps
and commonalities between the two sets of practices.
Furthermore, they should also compare the start and
end times of activities in each turnaround phase de-
tailed by CP with those prescribed by BP. It is impor-
tant to note that the comparison carried out in the sec-
ond step of the proposed methodology is more detailed
than that in the first step, and the results achieved
are therefore very specific. Because of this difference
in level of detail, companies should still complete the
second step of our methodology even if the comparison
in the first step showed that the CP were well aligned
with BP, as there still is a possibility of finding signif-
icant gaps between phase outputs and the timings of
phase activities between the two sets of practices. For
this case study, we performed a detailed comparison of
outputs and task timings; Table 1 shows part of this
comparison and provides details regarding each phase’s
major outputs and their timings. Note that the blank
spaces in the table are related to items documented in
one set of practices that have no direct parallels in the
other. Findings will of course vary for different com-
panies applying our methodology; however, the level
of detail discussed here shows how specific the second
step of the comparison should be. Our intention is to
help potential users of our methodology visualize what
benefits they can anticipate from this step.
Providing a detailed comparison similar to what pre-
sented in Table 1 for all activities will help reveal gaps
in the outputs and task timings of each CP phase. Ex-
perienced managers and engineers can use a document
like this one to help improve turnaround planning and
management processes; as they know by experience the
Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181

Figure 2. Comparison of company practices to best practices phases

176
 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181

Table 1. Sample comparison of outputs and task timings of select phases

Phase Output Start End
Company Best Company Best Company Best Company Best
Practices Practices Practices Practices Practices Practices Practices Practices
Work Scope Devel- Work Devel- Engineering Preliminary and 17 months 15 months 10 months 12 months
opment opment scope docu- approved work list to Breaker prior to to Breaker prior to
ment Open turnaround Open turnaround
Work Scope Devel- Work Devel- Updated Refined budget es- 17 months 15 months 10 months 12 months
opment opment financial timate (both ex- to Breaker prior to to Breaker prior to
forecast penses and capital) Open turnaround Open turnaround
Work Scope Devel- Work Devel- Updated long Long lead materials 17 months 15 months 10 months 12 months
opment opment lead procure- ordered to Breaker prior to to Breaker prior to
ment list Open turnaround Open turnaround
Detailed Plan- Detailed Integrated Integrated execu- 10 months 6 months 6 months
ning and Schedule Planning baseline tion plan to Breaker to Breaker prior to
Development schedule Open Open turnaround
Detailed Plan- Work Devel- Preliminary Integrated 10 months 15 months 6 months 12 months
ning and Schedule opment resource plan plan (schedule, to Breaker prior to to Breaker prior to
Development equipment, and Open turnaround Open turnaround
resources)

criticality of an output or its related activities com- Work Development Phase

pared to other outputs, they can decide which out-
puts to target for process improvement first and then
improve company processes systematically by trying
to decrease gaps they observe in their own, complete
version of Table 1. In addition to reducing the gap-
s in existing outputs, process improvement may also
include the addition of outputs recommended by BP
but non-existent in current CP. A document like Table
1 can also compare how CP and BP differ in timing
of tasks related to outputs. For these reasons, drawing
up a comparison chart like Table 1 is a useful visualiza-
tion exercise for turnaround practitioners as they de-
cide which changes they should make to their planning
and management processes (e.g., changes in resources,
altering of team composition) in order to bring their
CP into line with BP. Using this tool, companies fol-
lowing our methodology can choose to implement the
necessary changes as immediately or gradually.
Our case study illustrates the implementation of this
step in our methodology. The BP consider some phas-
es for turnaround planning and management that, as
shown in Figure 2, overlap with several phases of the
CP. Thus, it is possible for an output required by a
given BP phase to either exist for the same (parallel)
CP phase, exist for another (non-parallel) CP phase,
or not to exist for any CP phase. For the purposes of
this exercise, the first state is of interest, the second
state is considered a deviation that should be correct-
ed, and the third state indicates a gap that should be
filled. Here, we describe the findings of our case com-
parison and categorize them into these three categories
following the BP phases.
Business Planning Phase
In this study, the CP did not include the Business Plan-
ning phase at all; however, they did specify some re-
quired outputs related to business planning in other
phases. Out of 9 BP outputs related to business plan-
ning, 5 did not exist in CP, and one was considered in
another phase of CP.
The CP Project Setup sub-phase and CP Work Scope
Development sub-phase are parallel to the BP Work
Development phase. Out of 17 outputs in the BP Work
Development phase, only 1 did not exist in CP, and 3
were considered in another phase of CP.
Detailed Planning Phase
The CP Detailed Planning and Schedule Development
sub-phase and the Validation and Reconciliation sub-
phase are parallel to the BP Detailed Planning phase.
The detailed comparison of outputs showed that out of
9 outputs required by the BP Detailed Planning phase
only 1 did not exist in CP.
Pre-Turnaround Work Phase
The CP Project Optimization sub-phase and the
Project Mobilization and Setup sub-phase are paral-
lel to the BP Pre-Turnaround Work phase. Out of 10
outputs required by the BP Detailed Planning phase,
only 2 did not exist in CP.
Turnaround Execution Phase
The CP Project Execution sub-phase is parallel to the
BP Turnaround Execution sub-phase. For this phase,
the CP and BP outputs match.
Post-Turnaround Phase
The CP Project Demobilization sub-phase and
Project Closure sub-phase are parallel the BP Post-
Turnaround phase. Out of 13 outputs in the BP Post-
Turnaround phase, only 1 did not exist in CP, and 1
was considered in another phase of CP.
Conceptual Development Phase
CP considered outputs related to the BP Conceptu-
al Development phase in the Project Execution sub-
phase and Project Set-up sub-phase with some major
omissions. Out of 17 outputs in the BP Conceptu-

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 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181

al Development phase, 5 did not exist in CP. Table 2
summarizes the comparison of BP and CP phase out-
puts. Deviations are outputs considered by CP in diff-
erent phases than recommended by BP whereas gaps
are outputs absent from CP that are required by BP.
One way to present the results of this comparison is
to list them by item. For example, a gap may be pre-
sented as “BP recommend forecasting the turnaround
budget for the next five years as part of the business
plan, but CP do not consider five-year forecasts in the
turnaround budget”. Similarly, a deviation may be
presented as “While BP recommend that long lead ma-
terial purchase orders are finalized in the Work Deve-
lopment phase, CP specify that vendor contracts are
to be signed in the Project Optimization phase”. Ear-
lier in this section, we presented all the deviations and
gaps we found by comparing CP to BP. While it may
be useful for engineers involved in turnaround projects
to know the item-wise details of this comparison,
presenting the results to turnaround managers will be
more effective as an illustration of overall trends. For
example, for our case study we compiled the deviations
and gaps discussed above and displayed them in a bar
chart (Figure 3).
Figure 3 reveals the percentages of deviations and
gaps identified from the comparison of CP to BP. It
can be observed from Figure 3 that there is no devia-
tion or gap between CP and BP during the Turnaround
Execution phase. However, when it comes to the BP
Business Plan and Conceptual Development phases,
the gaps between the two sets of practices are more
than 50% (55.6% and 62.5% respectively). The chart
also shows that overall, the deviation between the two
sets of practices is 6.8% and the gap between CP and
BP is 20.3%. Illustrating the results of this compar-
ative analysis as we do in Figure 3 makes it easy for
turnaround managers to perceive which phases have
more deviations and gaps and thus require more pro-
cess improvement attention.
4.3 Missing Best Practices Concepts
In the third step of the proposed methodology, the ma-
jor BP concepts and items that should be included in
CP in future should be discussed. As we demonstrat-
ed, in the previous two steps, CP and BP are compared
and discrepancies between the two sets of practices are
identified and presented so as to highlight areas for

Table 2. Summary of phase output comparisons between best practices and company practices
Phase Total No. of Outputs No. of Deviations No. of Gaps
Business Plan 9 1 5
Work Development 17 3 1
Detailed Planning 9 0 1
Pre-turnaround Work 10 0 2
Turnaround Execution 8 0 0
Post-turnaround 13 1 1
Conceptual Development 8 0 5
Overall 74 5 15

Figure 3. Overall comparison of deviations and gaps (company practices versus best practices)

178
 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181
future improvement of company’s existing turnaround
project practices. However, some BP concepts may be
altogether omitted from corresponding sections of CP.
For example, the concept of team building was dis-
cussed in our Section 3.2 review of BP where we de-
fined characteristics of turnaround management teams
according to existing BP literature. The BP include
team building in the Pre-Turnaround Work phase and
define the different teams involved in turnaround man-
agement. Inclusion of a turnaround management orga-
nizational chart in CP may aid management personnel
in establishing and structuring teams. However, while
team building is a major concept discussed in the BP,
many companies may, as did the case study company,
exclude this concept from their documented planning
and management processes since in many cases, com-
pany personnel will have worked together for a long
time already and their teams will have been gradually
shaped over time. In these cases, from one turnaround
to the next, the need for including team building in
the Pre-turnaround Work phase or elsewhere in the
turnaround planning and management process is sig-
nificantly reduced.
Another BP concept that was entirely omitted from
the CP we examined in our case study is risk mitiga-
tion. In BP literature, sources of uncertainty during
the scoping phase are divided into four categories: or-
ganization, process, technique, and information. For
each category, sources of uncertainty are presented. In
order to reduce the risk associated with a power plant
turnaround, BP suggest reducing risk by making im-
provements under each category. BP literature insists
on the importance of following this practice for mit-
igating risks to ensure turnaround success; however,
turnaround practitioners may diverge from this prac-
tice by differently categorizing risks, providing insuffi-
ciently detailed information for risk mitigation, or, as
in our case study, considering risk mitigation outside
of the scope of turnaround planning and management
specifically. Consecutive turnarounds occurring at the
same specific plant will require many similar activities,
and considering the fact that turnaround planners and
managers responsible for a plant may work numerous
turnaround projects at that same plant, risks associat-
ed with turnarounds may be identified over time. For
this reason, the need for an explicit risk mitigation pro-
cess during each turnaround may be somewhat dimin-
ished. While risk mitigation is practiced by the case
study company, the associated internal policies and
procedures do not appear in the CP for turnaround
planning and management.
These two missing best practices concepts or any of
the other major concepts discussed in Section 3 of this
paper may well be overlooked by a company where
our methodology is applied. Highlighting these missing
concepts is crucial future process improvement, which
is why this third and final step in our methodology
must be performed in addition to the previous two.
179
5 CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
The contribution of this paper is in providing a com-
prehensive review of best practices for power plan-
t turnaround planning and management and a sys-
tematic method of comparing a company’s own best
practices against documented best practices, which
can help a company improve the planning and exe-
cution of its turnaround projects. We reviewed past
research regarding the best practices to plan and
manage turnaround projects and provided guidelines
and recommendations based on these best practices.
Previous research failed to provide a comprehensive
review of best practices for the planning and man-
agement of turnaround projects even though the need
for such a review has only been increasing. We also
presented a methodology for the analysis of company-
specific power plant turnaround planning and manage-
ment processes in relation to those recommended by
best practices; this methodology can be implemented
by companies involved in turnaround projects. We il-
lustrated our methodology using a case study wherein
we compared the existing documented practices of an
actual company with the best practices we discovered
through the literature review. Our analysis identified
similarities and differences between the company prac-
tices and the best practices, and focused on finding
gaps between these two sets of practices. Our analysis
of the identified deviations and gaps between the com-
pany practices and best practices will assist the case
company’s management team as they work to improve
their practices in future. If managed properly, integrat-
ing previously absent best practices and re-scheduling
differently scheduled practices to bring them into line
with best practices will lead to the process improve-
ment of turnaround planning and management. Im-
plementation of the recommendations and guidelines
provided in this paper by managers and engineers in-
volved in turnarounds is expected to contribute sig-
nificantly to better performance, fewer possibilities of
cost overruns, and less significant time delays in fu-
ture turnaround projects. The methodology we pro-
pose can be implemented by any company involved in
turnaround projects in order to improve existing, doc-
umented, company-specific turnaround planning and
management processes. Because it helps identify devi-
ations and gaps at both higher levels (e.g., turnaround
phases, missing best practices concepts) and lower lev-
els (e.g., phase outputs) of the turnaround planning
and management process, our methodology provides a
powerful foundation on which to base the process im-
provement of turnaround planning and management
processes.
This paper used documented company practices for
the basis of our comparison with best practices. In
future, this research can be extended to compare a
company’s documented practices to its actual, imple-
 Raoufi and Fayek /International Journal of Architecture, Engineering and Construction 3 (2014) 168-181

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Fayek, A. R. and Peng, J. (2013). “Adaptation of work-
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Ghazali, Z. and Halib, M. (2011). “Towards an alter-
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native organizational structure for plant turnaround
for his preliminary research into best practices for pow-
maintenance: An experience of PETRONAS Gas
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Berhad, Malaysia.” European Journal of Social Sci-
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was conducted under the NSERC Industrial Research
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